October 2008

October 31, 2008

I figured out what has to be the best barometer of just how little spare time I have these days: Ron Rash's new novel has been at the top of my TBR pile for over a month. And what have I been reading instead? you ask. A lot of stuff like this. Hooked I am. I guess because the baseball season was an utter flop and football has turned out to be even worse, I'm left watching politics as if it were some sort of fantasy sports league. It's never good when you lose sleep when your preferred candidate drops a point in some obscure daily tracker.

October 26, 2008

...and I'm still alive, thank you for asking. And Marlie picked up her kiddie harmonica today and I showed her a Bob Dylan video on YouTube and now she knows who Bob Dylan is. She also knows that Barack Obama is the next president, thank you very much.

Now it's all about naming the twins, and that's easier said than done. Especially when nostalgic people get offended. Nostalgia is the opium of the people who can't remember tomorrow.

October 17, 2008

October 15, 2008

For those of you who had "a boy and a girl" in the Syntax of Things Guess the Gender of the Twins pool, you can collect your winnings. We found out this morning. I can now put my "sex change for dad" fund that I had started in case they were both girls toward the diapers-for-two fund.

By the way, I've been more slammed than I'm normally slammed the last few weeks, meaning all of those other claims of being slammed were mere warm-ups to the actual slammedness that I'm experiencing right now. I hope to be less slammed come this weekend and assuming that I don't get trampled by a runaway pony or slammed by a greased pig at the North Carolina State Fair, then I'll be back to a somewhat more regular posting schedule, including, finally, an update on the books that I've actually had time to read the last few months in between moments of being slammed.

October 13, 2008

The University of Central Arkansas, already home to the great Oxford American magazine, has added Andrei Condrescu's Exquisite Corpse to its roster of publications. UCA will transition the Corpse from its current online-only format with a 150-page annual to hit bookstores in 2009. The Arkansas Democrat-Gazettechatted with Condrescu about this decision:

Q. How and why did the University of Central Arkansas become the center of earnest literary enterprise in this country ? Have you seen the place yet ? Did Warwick Sabin promise you a nice office ?

A. Mark Spitzer, one of the Corpse’s most formidable assistant editors at Louisiana State University, is now a professor at UCA. He suggested bringing the publication there because they already had the Oxford American, and having the Corpse too would simply propel the school into the big leagues. At least the literary publishing ones. I met with some well-meaning people there, English professors, deans, some administrators, and they all seemed keen on the idea. They promised me nothing: no money, no office, not even a lifetime supply of barbecue, but on the other hand we get to stay completely independent, publish whatever we like, keep ownership of the journal, and stop the relationship anytime we want. They get credit for their association with “the New Yorker of the avant garde,” as a mean critic once called us, and we get to be in a physical body again.

October 09, 2008

October 07, 2008

For some moronic reason, last night I decided to check on how my 401(k) is doing. Granted, there's not a whole hell of a lot in there in the first place, but what was there is now less, by a margin of some 25 percent. And now, Margaret Atwood is writing about the economy?

October 04, 2008

October 02, 2008

Didn't it start sounding as if one of the debaters tonight was relying on her notes and talking points, never straying from them and bringing every question back to those notes at all cost? Eventually, I started thinking of William S. Burroughs.

The Globe and Mailprofiles Nick Cave, who, it appears, has just finished work on a novel:

The book, which Cave finished mere days ago, is called The Death of Bunny Munro, and it grew out of a screenplay that never got made. Munro is "just not a good guy," Cave says.

"But I've always liked things like those Jim Thompson novels, where you've just got [a protagonist who's] flat-out evil. But there's always something a little endearing about him. And Thompson would draw you, chapter by chapter, into this vortex, where your sympathies are stretched finer and finer. I've always found that interesting in his books."

Curiously, Cave says the biggest difference between songwriting and novel writing is that "I find the writing of novels and stuff easier. It's because you're pursuing one idea for a sustained amount of time.

"My problem always is coming up with the original idea - that 'What am I going to write about?' And you have to do that over and over and over again with songs. Every time you finish one, you just have to work out what the next one will be. What's your theme?

"To write a novel, you only need to get a basic idea and run with it. It's the same with scriptwriting. Scriptwriting is even easier, because in most cases you're supplied your theme. Someone says. 'Will you write an Australian western?' Well, yeah, why not? It's not rocket science to do that - you get some archetypes, stick 'em on their head, and do this and that with them.

"But songwriting - I mean, the amount of times I've rung up my friends and said, 'Right, look, will someone tell me what to write a song about?' And someone will go, 'Well, what about trains?' And you go, 'Oh, all right.' "

October 01, 2008

I know it's probably not the best idea to go political on a blog not about politics, but I'm done with silence on this matter. Whatever one thinks of McCain and his rightful place as far as the future of this country is concerned, that's fine. McCain isn't the worst possible presidential candidate the Republicans could have nominated and he's definitely better than what we've had the last eight years, but that's not much of a compliment. However, I start getting really nervous when I think of the possibility of his running mate ascending to the highest office if something should happen to McCain. It's not just a momentary lapse of concentration anymore. Not an isolated incident. And this whole narrative of blaming the media and the "gotcha" journalism shows how desperate the campaign is to cover for her inadequacies. We're dealing with someone who, let's face it, is not qualified to be president of the United States. The Republicans want to cast her as the average Jo(e), "Joe six-pack" and that she may be, but in these difficult times, we need much better than average leading this country, even from the #2 position. We need someone who won't be stumped by the Katie Courics of the world, and someone who when stumped won't blame the questioner. We need someone who has been around the block and around the world and who knows how to answer a question, even if long-winded, but can answer it for crissake.

It's not hard to find a moment over the last few weeks that not only made me shake my head but actually petrified me when thinking of the possibility, actually kept me up more than one night with a clinched stomach thinking that this country could be put in the hands of this person. I think it really hit me when I think about how our decision this November might affect not just the country but also how it might affect the life of my daughter and the twins. That's why I can't keep silent anymore.

That and what I saw tonight. Her mistakes and gaffes are many, but this one made me lose my appetite. I don't know how much sleep I'll get tonight after this.